Fall 2009 (Vol. 2, No. 3)
Table of Contents
By Michael Potts
Today, most people and organizations agree that we need to shift off of fossil fuels to create a smarter, safer world fueled by efficiency and renewable energy. Read more
By Amory B. Lovins
RMI’s Next Big Thing will bring together all of our 27 years of innovation and engage the world in our most ambitious and important work yet. In short, we are Reinventing Fire: driving the business-led transition from oil, coal, and ultimately gas to efficiency and renewables. Read more
By Amory B. Lovins
Reinventing Fire has two main goals: to create a clear and practical vision of a fossil-fuel-free future for the United States, backed up by quantitative analysis, and to map a pathway to achieve that future, led largely by business. Read more
By Molly Miller
RMI’s work on one special project, the Empire State Building, show that energy consumption can be affected in an exponential way. This viral effect is what we’re hoping to achieve with our new Commercial Buildings Retrofit Initiative. Read more
By Molly Miller
Green Footstep, RMI’s new carbon calculator, helps designers such as those working on Florida's Archbold Biological Station, reduce a building’s carbon emissions to zero, or as close to zero as desired. Read more
By Kelly Vaughn
Renewable energy seems to be propagating quickly. But one important aspect of the revolution—heavy trucks—is anything but revolutionary. Read more
By Llew Wells
Duke Energy’s carbon footprint is driven by its heavy dependence on coal. To continue meeting customer needs in a carbon-constrained world, CEO Jim Rogers challenged his team to try to reduce the company’s carbon emissions 50 percent by 2030. Read more
By Cam Burns
At RMI2009: Reinventing Fire™, RMI’s three-day symposium in October, the Institute’s leaders, collaborators, supporters, and staff shared a wildly hopeful vision of how our resource-guzzling society could run on clean energy and clever technologies. Read more
By Kelly Vaughn
As the theme of RMI2009, and a term used to describe RMI’s new strategic direction, it is not surprising that much discussion at the three-day symposium was dedicated to exploring what exactly Reinventing Fire™ means. Read more
By Cam Burns
Ten years after its release, Natural Capitalism is clearly still a thriving notion. Today a wide range of companies use the four principles of “Nat Cap” to boost operational cost savings and stretch manufacturing resources. Read more
By Rebecca Cole
Exactly a year after RMI hosted the Smart Garage Charette in Portland, a group of industry experts convened at RMI2009 weighed in on where the U.S. stands in making an electrified vehicle fleet a reality. Read more